Boarding Party • XI. Hell or High Water (Patreon)

Delores Irae had heard of “Sawbones” Sawyer Cain and his crew before. He was one of the many scoundrels listed in her Naval Academy textbooks—a successful buccaneer whose life was cut short by his own greed. His death was taught as a cautionary tale, warning of the cruel and inevitable death that awaits for any sea-faring scoundrel.  

After passing the Academy, Delores had never paid him any further mind—that was, until fifteen years or so after his death, when the ghost stories about him began to circulate. They warned not about what happened to Sawyer Cain, but of Sawyer Cain himself. Apparently, the old scallywag was now a skeletal ghoul, sailing the Soval Sea with his undead crew, ending the lives of anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path. 

 While all of the stories were as ham-fisted as the next, Delores had to admit that they were consistent. Minor details carried over from story-to-story, not always present but rarely contradicting. It is believed that “Sawbones” had kidnapped his ex-wife, a former navywoman, and keeps her as a prisoner aboard his ship of the damned. Some sailors say that his crew is composed of his victims—folks like merchants and soldiers turned into brain-eating bastards. Others describe how he still haunts Saint Khan’s, which is supposedly the largest pirate port in the Soval Sea, although its location (even its existence) is unverified to the Horatio Empire.

Delores never believed a single word of any of it—which made it all the more frustrating when she received the order to take him down. 

Delores sailed underneath a pitch-black night. There were no stars in the sky, and the moon hid behind a dense fog surrounding the HMS Barker. Despite the day crew transitioning into the night shift, Delores stayed behind the helm—her thirteenth consecutive hour at wheel.

She needed the distraction. She couldn’t just sit and stew in her Captain’s Quarters, wishing that this mission would be over with already—it had no actual purpose, and thus, no actual end.

 Why chase boogeymen when there are actual pirates actually terrorizing people? 

She regularly sank ships on the behalf of the Horatio Empire—so why was she ordered to metaphorically check underneath the bed for monsters? She tightened her grip on the wheel’s spokes and damned Commander Dukat’s name underneath her breath.  

“Captain!” one of Delores’ lackeys screamed, breaking her grimacing stare. He rushed over to her and pointed off the ship’s starboard side. “There’s somebody in the water!” 

Delores turned her attention away from the bow and spotted the overboard individual. A man drifted by on a piece of broken hull, halfway hidden by the fog. His clothes were stained and torn, and his hair was as wet as it was stringy—a victim of a nasty storm, Delores assumed. 

 “Well, go get him, then! And be quick—we’re not turning back,” she sneered. 

The lackey rushed to the nearest mast and grabbed a boathook. He swung it towards the castaway’s direction, nagging his shirt and drifting him closer to the Barker. Two more navymen helped him up with boathooks of their own, dropping him onto the main deck with a plop. 

For the first time that day, Delores stepped away from the helm.

The man was bloodied, missing large chunks of his flesh from most of his body. In fact, it seemed like he didn’t have any meat on his legs at all.  

“It couldn’t be…” one of the navymen muttered.

“Sharks…” another one suggested. “Drawn to shipwrecks, they are. And—” 

“Toss him back and get back to your posts!” Delores interrupted.

As the lackey obeyed his Captain’s orders and laid his hands on the castaway, the half-eaten man began to convulse. His pure white eyes widened and his limbs began to twitch in different directions. He unhinged his jaw and tossed his body to bite the lackey’s neck. Before anything could splatter onto the deck, Delores unholstered her pistol and shot the bloodied man in the head. He groaned in agony, taking several steps backward before he fell off the Barker, once again overboard. 

The lackey began sputtering about, coughing up a greyish-red mixture as his eyes locked onto the Captain, as if waiting for further orders. Delores took a pistol from another soldier’s belt and pulled the trigger, putting the lackey out of his misery.

“ALL HANDS TO—” she began before someone else cut her off. 

“CAPTAIN!” one of her men screamed. “ANOTHER SHIP CLOSE ABOARD!!” 

Delores looked up—from out of the dense fog, the words “The Festering Wound” sailed past her before the first cannon fired against the Barker. A storm of dust and splinters flew up from the impact area—promptly followed by a scream of writhing pain from below deck. Delores rushed back to the helm, spinning the wheel to make the Barker turn hard to port. 

“RETURN FIRE AND FIX THAT HOLE!” she yelled out to her crew. She turned to the nearest soldier and yelled, “DROP CANVAS AND GET US THE HELL OUT OF HERE!” 

Another cannon shot from The Festering Wound, ripping a hole through one of the ship’s sails. The Barker responded with two cannons of its own, although—as Delores would soon come to find out—ship-to-ship combat wasn’t exactly the main priority of the Wound. 

Once it was close enough, someone from the Wound yelled “NOW GIVE ‘EM HELL, BOYS” before manically laughing. Several zombies jumped the now-short distance from their ship to the Barker. Although they were armed, the undead chose to rip into every redshirt with their teeth instead of any blade.

Delores unsheathed her cutlass and beheaded two zombies ascending the stairs to the Poop Deck. Their decapitated heads moaned as several more shambled themselves toward her, arms outstretched and grasping. 

Before they could reach her, their skeletal leader swung from the Wound onto the Barker, kicking the capstan with his boot. The Barker lurched forward as the anchor plunged into the coral below, knocking everybody but the skeleton to the ground. The Wound, now captained by a gruff feline, sailed in circles around the Barker and riddled her with cannonballs as Cain walked up the steps to Delores. 

He kicked her sword closer to her and got into a fencing position. “C’mon! Get tha hell up, already! Ye be the pride of tha Empire, for gods’ sakes!”

Delores picked up the sword and got to her feet. “Sawyer Cain… on behalf of the Horatio Empire… and Queen Fotz—”  she grunted before a BANG sent her lurching forward. The world turned kaleidoscopic as she smelled gunsmoke and the taste of copper invaded her tastebuds. She heard the skeletal captain’s cackling as she became lightheaded, mockingly reciting her final words back at her.  

Delores’ world shifted sideways as she fell. She watched the crew of The Festering Wound pick apart her crew before getting picked up, draped over the hull of the Barker, and shoved into the ocean. Light blue became darker and darker until everything became black. 

Delores wiggled her way through a tight, fleshy tube like something that had been swallowed—the same thing she’d been doing ever since coming to Hell. 

Her arms and legs were pinned to her sides. Some sort of slime covered every inch of her. Mucus? Blood? She couldn’t tell. Her eyes were closed to shield them from the goo. If she were to open them, she would’ve discovered the horror that surrounded her: flesh all around—bright, almost backlit. Inside flesh, pink, moist, and veiny. 

Originally, all she thought about was panic and escape. But after feeling as if she had been locked in her esophagus-like prison for eternity, now all she seethed over her hatred for Cain—the man who killed her, and the Horatio Empire—the people who sent her to die. 

Several months later…

Cain sat in the clinic of Dr. Leonard Picardo, his arms crossed as he waited for Winn and Tawny’s liposuctions to be over. 

“Gods! How much gunk did those idols pump into ‘em?” Cain asked Lenore.

The nurse shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea! Maybe ten?” 

“Ten what?” Cain asked.

“Ten CCs?” Lenore asked. 

“What be a CC?”

“I don’t know!” the nurse smiled before she looked back at the book she’d been reading. Unlike the other books in Leonard’s library, this one wasn’t leatherbound. It was a bunch of papers stitched together, the first one a drawing of a grimacing face. It spanned the entire page, gnarling to the reader with sharp teeth and sporting plenty of wrinkles. The book’s chapters were oddly titled—like “Kontrol Thaett Whitch Walks Yet ies Not Ahlive.” Lenore’s favorite parts were the numerous pictures, with plenty of drawings like a skull, a ghost with floating hair, and a guy that looked like Cain if he wore a black robe and carried a curly sword.

Certain words in the book were a bit hard to read, so Lenore had to sometimes rely on sounding things out. Under a chapter titled “Sphark A Rivalree Wunce Settelled,” a passage read…

“...k-klatau… buh… bar… barada? Barada… uh… Herr Kaptain? Do you know what this says?” Lenore asked.

“I don’t read,” Cain brushed her off, “especially whatever tha hell language that be in.”

The nurse squinted at the book. “N…ikto? I think it’s ‘Nikto.’” 

“Glad ta help...” the skeleton grumbled, scowling at a jarred eyeball on a shelf that stared back at him. 

“So… klatau, barada, nikto!” the nurse beamed. 

Then, the clinic felt like it began to roll. The vibrations made it seem as if they were a spinning wheel, even though they weren’t actually moving. The numerous jars on display in the clinic began to shake and drop on the floor one by one. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! 

Cain watched as several parasites crawled underneath the clinic’s door and scurried out into the Saint Khan’s street. 

“What the hell ye be readin’?!” the skeleton yelled at Lenore. 

“I don’t know, there isn’t a title on the front. Maybe it’s called ‘Face’?” the nurse asked before handing him the book.

Cain screamed in horror, frantically flipping through the pages and discovering that it was a hand-copied version of the Necronomicon. 

In the middle of the Soval Sea, water began to boil. It stained red, spreading through the waves like a crimson mist. A piece of meat bobbed to the surface of the sea as if it were a fish gone belly-up. Several more pieces followed before they were joined by scraps of wood, rusted swords, and a skull. More and more bits of flesh and ship began to re-surface, piecing themselves together. The chunks of meat drifted together, conjoining themselves with a rusty hook nailed to a board for support. The flesh was still red and dripping like they haven’t been underneath the ocean for months. Barbed wire wrapped around skin. Jaws conjoining themselves to skulls. Like the bodies, the planks began to re-shape themselves, forming the HMS Barker’s hull once more. 

Much to Delores’ surprise, the hot flesh around her turned cool. She opened one eye and promptly closed it, blinded by the sunlight peeking through the tube’s rectum. After a few more wriggles, she fell out of the pink orifice and plopped into the Captain’s Quarters of her newly-restored ship.

Thanks to his sea legs, Cain was able to stay upright as the clinic continued to quake. Lenore held onto a desk for dear life, wobbling so hard that her stitches began to feel loose. A THUD! and another THUD! from the operating room told Cain that Winn and Tawny’s surgeries weren’t as far along as he thought they were. 

The skeleton growled and shoved the Necrofauxmicon back at Lenore. “FIX WHATEVER THE HELL YE JUST DID!”

“Uhh…” Lenore faltered, “I-I don’t think I can, Herr Kaptain!” 

“WHY NOT?” Cain yelled. 

Lenore flipped through the book and, after finding her spot, held it up for Cain. An illustration of a man and a skeleton locked into a swordfight was complimented by blocks of text that were nothing more than squiggles to the illiterate captain.  

“And…?” the skeleton asked, twirling his bony hand around, gesturing for Lenore to explain.

The nurse looked down at the book. “Sphark… A… Rivalree… Wunce… Settelled…” she recited, tracing the words with a finger.

“Spark a Rivalry Once Settled…” Cain repeated. “What else?” 

Lenore looked back at the book and squinted her eyes. “Co… com… commiss…” 

“Sound it out in yer head, then say it!” the skeleton groaned. 

The nurse’s bulging eyes scanned the page twice before narrating. “Commissioned by Sir O'Reilly of Dorn. Brings a past enemy of the caster’s back from the dead in order to give purpose to the former’s life again. If—”

“So, who be yer rival, then?” Cain interrupted.

“What’s a rival?” the nurse asked.

The skeleton sputtered. “W-what!? Ye know, somebody ye fight with!” 

Lenore rolled her eyes in thought. “Ohh! Uh… I don’t know!” she shrugged.

“You don’t know?!” the skeleton asked before gnashing his teeth. “Well, what does the rest of it say, then?” 

The nurse looked down again. “If the caster has no deceased enemies, then the spell will attach itself to the closest applicable person…”

Cain’s sockets widened.

Lenore looked at him. “Do you have a lot of deceased enemies, Herr Kaptain?” 

Cain looked to the side. “Uh… a couple, yeah…” 

While a deep scarlet constantly darkened the sea around the H.M.S. Barker, the crimson waters continued in a line trudging far ahead of the ship. It resembled a long gash in the ocean’s flesh, a trail for the Barker to follow. 

Delores Irae stood behind the helm, cackling to herself in between fits of agonizing euphoria. Not only did Hell rob Delores of her hair and her melanin, but all of her skin from the neck down as well. With each gust of wind, each brush against the Barker’s jagged hull, and each time her clothes draped across her exposed muscles, her brain was penetrated by a feeling completely alien to her. Was it extreme agony or extreme pleasure? Delores was unsure. 

The only thing keeping her mind steady, from turning into a puddle of shuddering goo from these newfound feelings, was her new purpose in life—to completely eradicate the Horatio Empire and “Sawbones” Sawyer Cain. 

The sounds of the Barker had become a symphony of metallic scraping, creaking wood, and squishing flesh. Its crewmates—now rudimentarily reconstructed with the help of ship scraps—had resumed their usual duties. One redshirt kept a watchful eye (or, more accurately, lack of eyes) from the crow’s nest. Another navyman adjusted the ship’s rigging—the rigging being made out of nerves, his nerves being made out of rope. A trio of soldiers tried to mop the decks, but it proved to be a pointless endeavor with the ship’s constant bleeding. 

Delores, suppressing her underlying ecstasy with overwhelming bloodlust, sailed down the murky, maroon path. Shark fins pierced the waters nearby, drawn to the redness in the mutual hope of potential prey.

Chapman, the eyeless chap in the crow’s nest, lowered his rusted spyglass. “LAND HO, CAP’N…!” he called out below, his teeth clacking together as he talked. 

Delores reached for her belt and, from between two fastened hooks, unsheathed her spyglass. With a gloved hand, she wiped some blood from its lens and peered out into the distance. A dark blur laid ahead of them, but with a few more seconds, the image sharpened into a large, eclectically-styled island. Unlike the more competently architected cities she was used to, like Port Bashir, . Every building looked like it was seconds away from toppling over. Dark plummets of smoke rose out of the tops of the island. Then, the first skull-and-crossbones made itself known—the first of the many flags that surrounded the island.

The demoness smiled, licking her gums as she retracted her scope. “So, the stories were true…”

She had finally found Saint Khan’s Port.

The Barker didn’t anchor. Instead, a flurry of chains flew from unseen angles, lodging themselves into the docks—and any pirate unfortunate enough to stand in their way. Delores wrapped a pair of irons around her hands and slid down a strand of them, landing on the wood with a loud THUD from her heavy boots. Her crewmates followed behind, albeit, with a lot less grace. 

The pale woman scanned her surroundings—which was a complete shithole. Seamen who appeared to be falling apart from various… intimately-shared diseases walked alongside grizzled sailors who seemed to have more pegs than limbs anymore. Those fortunate enough to not be described as “monstrous" stood in alleyways, hawking their bodies and hourly rates.

A permeating smoke brought a sting to the eye and a cough from the lungs. Queasy odors wafted from everywhere—from the polluted, dark green waters of the docks to the filthy city streets. Delores sneered as she walked into town, having to avoid what she hoped were animal droppings littering the road. 

The townsfolk stared at Delores and her crew in horror. While still an uncommon sight, the undead weren’t completely alien to the people of Saint Khan’s. Zombies had been appearing more frequently—whether they be the eponymous Beheaded Navyman (before it mysteriously disappeared) or part of the neverending group of “Cain’s boys.”

…But these guys…

The crew of The Festering Wound were at least recognizable as being once human. Delores’ goons seemed to defy what few laws of physics the world of Stashwick knew. They were something never feared before—simply because nobody had been able to think about something like them to get scared about in the first place. They were more things than people, walking junk drawers with slivers of meat to still constitute them as “living.” 

Delores herself was a woman of contradictions. She was alive, yet her face was the color of someone whose blood had given up pumping a long time ago. She walked with a deity-like grace, her strut as commanding as it was worthy of a catwalk. Despite her sunken eyes, skinless body, and hooks digging into her flesh, she was almost beautiful—like a butterfly pinned to a board. Chains followed behind her like guard dogs, floating about her with apparent independence. Where they came from was always just out of sight, but they ended in various hooks and blades—all dripping red at the tip. 

Delores continued further into Saint Khan’s, following the bloody trail that beckoned her forward. She wasn’t concerned with the people staring at her—she was too busy thinking about Cain. Killing him was out of the question—like her and her crew, he’s supposed to be dead, but isn’t, somehow. Instead, she’d tear him apart, dismembering him and grinding his bones into a fine ash. She’d sprinkle bits and pieces here and there—on islands, in the middle of the ocean, all spread out as far away as possible. That way, he’d have to live an agonizing eternity—the same one he subjected her to. 

The demoness was snapped out of her revenge-driven daydreaming by a sharp turn taken by the trail. She furrowed her brow and looked to where it veered—a small clinic, with a sign hanging in the window reading “DR. PICARDO, SURGERY & ANESTETHIC.”

Inside, Lenore was sweeping up shards of broken jars while Cain walked in circles around the waiting room. Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks and snapped his skull to the window. He walked closer, resting one hand on his flintlock and the other on a window shutter.  

The skeleton turned to Lenore with a furrowed browline. “Do ye hear that, lass?” 

“Hear what?” the nurse asked. “The broom?”

“No, no! I mean that clinkin’ outside, like a chain gain or somethin’...” the captain muttered.

“What’s—” Lenore began before a hook flew through the door of the clinic. 

 A flurry of splinters and wood chips exploded before the office’s front door crumbled apart. Cain stood in front of Lenore, unholstering his flintlock and taking aim at the now-empty frame. The demoness’ shadow darkened the doorway, partially hidden by the clouds of sawdust rising into the air. She scanned the room until her eyes laid on Cain. 

“…YOU…” she growled, pointing at him and squinting her eyes. She lumbered a few steps forward, her hand shaking in anger.

The skeleton cocked his pistol. “Who are ye?” Cain asked.

Delores gnashed her teeth together. “You don’t remember?!”

Cain squinted at her, noticing her lack of pants or stockings. “Uhh… are ye with Fontaine?”

“You destroyed my ship and fed my crew to your zombies before you shot me!” the demoness screamed. “Delores Irae? Commanding Officer of the HMS Barker?”

Cain shook his head. “Nope, no bells be ringin’, Miss Irae.”

“Captain Irae,” she corrected with a sternness learned from the Naval Academy.

“Well, ye gotta have a ship ta be a captain, Miss Irae. An’ from what I be hearin’, yer Barker be a couple planks floatin’ in tha Soval.”

“Nuh uh! It’s chained to the docks right now!” Delores said, pointing southward.

“Suuure…” Cain shot back.

“No, really, it is!” the demoness whined, causing a couple chains to rattle in the air and tell Cain to pivot the conversation.

“Well, me dearest, sincerest apologies, Miss Irae, but I don’t make an effort ta remember every boot-lickin’ pig I put out of thar misery…” 

“‘Put out of my misery’? PUT OUT OF MY MISERY?!” Delores screamed. “YOU SENT ME TO HELL! DON’T YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS LIKE?!” 

“Ye mean Hell? Aye! It be just a buncha darkness—an’ only darkness, since there be no such thing!”

“LIAR!” Delores screamed. “I spent… I-I don’t even know how long… trapped in some… sphincter tunnel COVERED IN SHIT! You didn’t put me out of my misery, you are its sole architect!” 

She threw a chain, hooking the nearest of her goons and dragging him close. “Look at my crew, Cain, look at what your crew did to mine!!” 

She grabbed the goon and pulled him up from the floor—a skeleton who looked like he had been crucified. “This was one of my gunners before your rigor-mortis-ridden bastards picked him clean. A shame, really… he used to be rather handsome…” 

“Really, Cap’n…?” he asked.

“Used,” Delores emphasized before tossing him to the side. “And now, Captain, the favor will be returned….” 

Cain winced. “Uhh… I don’t think ye be all that handsome, truely. I prefer me gals—”

“NO! I mean that I’m sending you back to Hell!” Delores yelled. “And if the only way that can happen is if I have to hook you and drag your bony ass down there myself, then so be it…” 

Now properly threatened, Cain took his shot. It missed its intended target—that little space between Delores’ eyes—and ricocheted off a metal pole one of the devoured crewmates supported himself against. The bullet whizzed across the office, shattering a vial of glowing, green liquid that melted the wooden shelf it sat on.

“Hey! Compose yourselves out there!” Leonard called out from the other room. “I can’t stitch if my office is shaking EVERY FIVE GODSDAMN SECONDS! Where’s the anesthetic?!" 

With ranged combat out of commission, Cain grabbed his cutlass and sprinted towards Delores. Two chains—one ending in a hook, the other ending in a knife—flew towards him, but a swing of his sword circumcised both of them of their dangerous ends. The skeleton then took a jab towards Delores, intending to poke several new holes in her intestines. However, the demoness jumped backwards and drew a rapier of her own. They began to lash into each other, their blades clinking together loudly.

Delores’ crewmates drew their own rusted weapons and began closing in on Cain. Lenore—promising to do no harm to any patients—dug her face into a bowl of anesthetic, widening her pupils and boiling her blood. She ran towards one of the crewmates and grabbed his skull, ripping the top from the jaw and throwing it out of the clinic’s window. 

“HEY!!” Leonard screamed from the operating room.

The nurse then grabbed a metal pole—acting as the jawless crewmate’s spine—and bashed another crewmate in the head with it. She pinned the jawless navyman into a wall with the pole and ran towards the opposite side of the clinic. She grabbed a vial of the green liquid from a partially-liquified shelf and threw it at the closest crewmate, the acid melting what little flesh remained on his face. He ran around the clinic in agony, only stopping when he ran into the Operating Room’s door at full speed, busting it from its hinges. 

“GODSDAMMIT!” the doctor screamed. “I can’t ever enjoy a liposuction without something coming up, can I!?”

Cain and Delores’ swordfight flooded in, their CLING CLING CLING-ing drowning out Lenoard’s cursing and demands to know what the hell was going on. Cain hopped onto the slab Tawny laid on in order to gain an advantage over his opponent. Delores jumped onto Winn’s slab while the two continued their lashings. A swing from the demoness’ rapier narrowly missed Cain, but sliced into the tube draining Tawny of her excess fat. Cream-colored goop started to shoot out of it like a geyser, splattering everybody and everything in the office. 

“MY BILE!” Leonard screamed. “THAT’S IT! Fritz, plug up the tube!”

“Yesss, master!” his assistant replied.

Leonard grabbed one of Delores’ legs and yanked on it, causing her to topple off her slab. The demoness fell to the floor, spine-to-the-bricks, groaning-yet-moaning in pain. The distraction was short lived, however, as several hooks lowered down from the ceiling and brought her back up. Cain took some heat off of Leonard by re-igniting the duel, causing Delores to shift her bloodlust back to the captain once more. Meanwhile, the doctor scoured his instrument table for anything to help take down the demoness who dared to mess with his precious goo. He settled on a scalpel and huffed some more anesthetic for a burst of quick courage.

Out in the waiting room, Lenore was making quick work of Delores’ crewmates. She strangled one of them with his own veins, pinning his arms behind his back with her high heel. Despite her brutality, the nurse wasn’t getting off scot-free. After taking numerous blows, inky-black blood seeped from between her stitchings and numerous bruises stained her mixed-matched flesh.

After properly trashing the operating room, the swordfight found its way out of the operating room once more. It seemed like it would never end, that Cain and Delores would fight until either one of them surrendered or the world around them collapsed—the latter being the more likely. That was, until Leonard ran up and jabbed his scalpel into the demoness’ back, taking her by surprise. She screamed at the top of her lungs before her knees buckled in euphoric agony. She ripped it out of her back and turned to the doctor, hell burning in her eyes. 

“...Nurse…!” he squeaked as Delores lifted her sword in the air and swung it down. 

“Herr doktor!” Lenore cried. She ran in front of Leonard, shielding him from the blow. The nurse’s head went flying across the room, bouncing off a wall and landing amongst the carnage of Delores’ crew. Her body began to spray black from its neck, twitching for a few beats before collapsing onto the ground. 

“Lenore!” Leonard screamed. He rushed over to her head while Delores turned back to her bony opponent. 

She groaned. “This has already taken long enough, Sawbones! I have others to attend to, you know!”

“Yes, but are they tha ones what sent ye ta Hell?” asked Cain. 

“…In a sense…” 

“Ah! But not directly?” 

“You’re right! That’s all on you, Captain!” she said before shooting her hand forward, producing a chain honing towards the skeleton’s direction. 

He was struck—both by the chain and by an idea. Grunting in pain, he ran towards and around Delores, wrapping the chain hooked into him around her. Before she realized what had happened, the demoness’ arms were already pinned to her sides.

“WHAT THE—” she grunted before she lost her balance (thanks to a nudge from Cain’s sword). She slammed onto the floor with an OUGH, her body landing next to the decapitated Lenore’s. She cursed at the skeleton, but interrupted herself with deep shudders. She wiggled around like a fish protesting its lack of water, both struggling against her bondage and writhing in delight because of it. Any effort to sic any chains were futile as her mind was too preoccupied with the dance between pleasure and pain.

Leonard walked forward, holding Lenore’s (still dripping) head in his hands. “Is she… alright?”

Cain looked at the nurses’ head and sneered. “How am I supposed ta know? Ye be the one what defied the gods an’ created that thing!”

The doctor looked down at the head he held. “Oh! No, I can just stitch her back together and pep her back up with some Coaca powder. I mean whoever the hell that was…” 

The skeleton looked back at Delores’ writhing body with a grimace. “From tha look of it, I think so…?” He clapped his hands together. “Now! How do ye go about killin’ a demon?”

The doctor shrugged in defeat. “I don’t think you can…”

“Then what tha hell am I supposed ta do with her, then?!” 

CRUNCH! BANG! THWANG! SLAM! BAM! THUNK! 

Cain’s zombic crew haphazardly tossed the scraps of Delores’ crew back onto the HMS Barker, not caring about if they actually made it onto the ship or if they just bounced off the hull and fell into the water instead. Afterwards, the still-chained-up Delores was lumbered aboard and thrown on top of the rotten pile.

“Uhh… is that her?” Tawny asked as she watched from the docks. 

Beside her, Cain nodded. “Aye! An’ out of her an’ I, guess who Picardo stuck with tha bill fer office repairs?!” 

He muttered something underneath his breath and crossed his arms. “She be lucky that tha most valuable thing on her ship be those chains keepin’ her at bay…”

Winn cocked her body to the side, which was far easier to do now. “And this entire time, D’anna and Majel have been where…?” 

“Squanderin’ their wages at Fontaine’s…” the skeleton groaned. “There be this new thing there that boasts some sorta ‘new way ta feast.’ I think it be called a ‘buffy’ or somethin’ stupid like that. If I wasn't so tight with me doubloons, I’d just pay ta get them sucked skinny, too…” 

With all of the Barker’s crew incapacitated, Cain’s boys lifted the ship’s anchor and dropped its canvas before shambling back to their boat. 

To get rid of a demon, Cain theorized, you have to simply get rid of it. 

From the docks, he looked on as the Barker sailed into the distance with nobody at the helm, leaving a trail of crimson-stained water in its wake. Although he was happy to clean his bony hands of his hellish troubles, a looming dread crept over the skeleton. He knew that this was only a minor setback—Delores would eventually come back again, and hell would have no fury like her.